Isn`t just vanity. Is 2 diferent experiences and thats why is bad.

[Xhominid]

Snip

And now here's my problem with this mentality:

Let's say someone wants to eat every single burger in the world as that's their life's enjoyment, do you think they somehow have the right to complain if in order to do that, they have to buy plane, bus tickets and boat rides to every single burger location in the world? Or if they are a sports car enthusiast and they want to take a picture of every single car, from extremely common to undeniably rare, they have the right to complain that they would need to pay for the best picture camera and the expenses to be able to find these cars?

That's the issue that I have with people who complain about the minions, mounts and other vanity item collectors: They did not complain when they had to buy Squenix Merch outside of the game to get the minion or mount(DO NOT tell me that it's different, it's not nor will it ever be, you still have to buy something outside of the game to get it). If you are aiming to get something that will take time and dedication, if something as bad as actually PAYING for something gets you, yet you had no issue buying outside merch to get it otherwise...I think your priorities are incredibly skewed and you don't even notice it.

[Seniade]

...

With games, there are intended goals as set by the creators, and then there are personal endeavors that a player can set for themselves outside of the main goal of the game. For instance, some people do low level challenges in single player games. Was the game made with the intent of clearing it at as low a level as possible? No, but the player set that personal goal in addition to the intended goal of completing the game.

Likewise, the target of getting all of the minions or mounts is not necessarily an intended goal but merely a personal endeavor. A player that started playing now with either of those endeavors would already fail before they began. Two of the mounts in-game (the legacy chocobo and goobbue) are restricted to 1.0 players and cannot be earned even through the cash shop. For minions, the wind-up dalamud was unlocked with a code from the Before Meteor soundtrack which is out of stock, and the code must be redeemed by the end of this month. The wind-up Thancred & Minfillia minions were part of the 1 year anniversary and are no longer obtainable.

[Fyrebrand]

Well, this is what you get when you support the cash shop. It may seem fine to you "as long as it's not pay-to-win," or "as long as it doesn't include things I like."

This is only the beginning. We have the Triple Triad card game to look forward to, which has already been announced to award exclusive cards based on what you unlock in your phone app. I fully expect additional purchases there. Then there's the upcoming Gold Saucer -- it boggles my mind, to think of the money-grubbing horrors the company that invented All The Bravest can come up with. That's in addition to any future minions, mounts, gear, etc.

At this point, I already don't even want to hear about new mounts or minions. I just naturally assume they are all to be bought in the cash shop, because, why the heck wouldn't they be? "No news is good news" isn't really the feeling you want to be inspiring in your customers, in my opinion.

[LunaHoshino]

-snip-

Your own personal definition of winning does not trump the definition that was set by the creators of the game, plain and simple. You can set your own goals within the game, but you can't expect SE to consider those goals to be as important as what they have instated as the intended goals of the game. What SE intends is for players to progress through the story.

FFXIV is not Pokemon. You may enjoy playing it that way (and that's fine), but that isn't why it was created, nor is it a playstyle that SE considers to be the main purpose of the game.

[Roris]

Your own personal definition of winning does not trump the definition that was set by the creators of the game, plain and simple. You can set your own goals within the game, but you can't expect SE to consider those goals to be as important as what they have instated as the intended goals of the game. What SE intends is for players to progress through the story.

FFXIV is not Pokemon. You may enjoy playing it that way (and that's fine), but that isn't why it was created, nor is it a playstyle that SE considers to be the main purpose of the game.

Except nowhere in the game nor in the Lodestone or really anywhere else does it state clearly "this is the only and main condition to win the game, once you've fulfilled it you've beat the game". Most MMOs are built around a series of objectives with multiple win and lose conditions, even in this game with few relevant PvE and PvP endgame content there are many objectives to accomplish, that's also why there are so many achievement categories in the first place.

Are you saying DoH and DoL classes and players whose main focus is crafting and gathering can't ever win the game because they aren't fighting anything? PvP oriented players (yeah I know) can't win either because they aren't progressing through the Coil storyline because their main focus is PvP? Or how about 1.0, I guess only around 100 players beat the game because they were the only ones to beat Nael Hard and get White Ravens, the hardest challenge in the game.

You are doing exactly what you're telling others not to do, you are projecting your own personal definition of what winning this game means. Good thing you aren't an SE dev or representative to declare and set in stone what the definition of winning this game actually is.

[Mook_Mook]

What if? What if? What if?

You could "what if" anything. Here's what's happening now: None of that. What's happening now is they are offering premium vanity content which does not affect access to content whatsoever. All of these strawmen ripostes I keep seeing are extreme what if scenarios if SE decided to block access to content and make such stuff premium. Okay, if they did that you can complain about that. But they're not doing that and it is very unlikely they will be doing that. So stop bringing up such crazy arguments.

people said, what if extra retainers leads to a cash shop
people said, what if fantasia was the start of a cash shop
The defenders of eorzea stepped in and said HALT, why say what if lets focus on the now. Now peoples prediction were right! GAASSPP!!!

[Mook_Mook]

The community is to blame everyone who bought into fantasia and extra retainers only help set the precedent for this. SE will push until it pushes too far and with this community they can push pretty far. They have a lot of what the f2p community refers to as "whales" here. So they get to double dip and why wouldn't they want to take peoples money, one person buying sleipner is two months of anything sub. They can stand to lose players on this decision because there gains are so great. gamers reap what they sow, and to those that stood stead fast, I'm sorry your experience is brought down by these players its pretty unfortunate, but thats why I've unsubbed.

[LunaHoshino]

Are you saying DoH and DoL classes and players whose main focus is crafting and gathering can't ever win the game because they aren't fighting anything?

Why do you think you can't start the game as a DoH or a DoL class and must instead wait until you're level 10 in a DoW/DoM class to unlock DoH/DoL? If those were meant to be the main purpose of the game, you would be allowed to start as those classes right from character creation... but you can't. Not only that, but a large number of ingredients for crafting classes are enemy or dungeon drops.

It's hardly "my own personal definition" when the game itself forces you to engage in at least a minimal amount of combat even for those classes.

[Cyrus-Wallace]

They've just gone too far in my book.

My subscription ends in 9 days and I will NOT be renewing.

People keep saying they're ok with cash shop as long as it's not pay to win. Define 'win'. Winning in an MMO is different for every player. Winning to me would have been collecting all of the vanity gear, making furnishings for a house so I could constantly rearrange it, getting married and having a 2 person mount for me and my sweetie. So for me, this is already 'pay to win'. And I'm done.

The never-ending gear treadmill, the personal housing farce, the paid retainers to begin with and now, marriage.

Nope. Nope.

"They only pay attention to subscriber numbers" Ok
"If you don't like it, unsubscribe." Ok.

Unsubscribing, see ya.

P.S. For those of you who are totally in favor of a cash shop, do me a favor? At the end of a year, total up the money you've spent on this cash shop and take at least a full minute to think about whether or not it's really been worth it.....

Hm...

What I think the dev had in mind when they said it's not "pay to win", they were refering to PvP/PvE content, where you "can win". How? Let alone if it's easy, hard, mindless, overcomplicated, whatever. You can win by... clearing the dungeons, raids and PvE content in general. You have a lockout system to hold the gear that is given to the players. So, let's start with this, YOU HAVE A LOCKOUT. They are already controlling the gear you can get/week.

The better the gear, the easier the content. If you can get that gear, without grinding for weeks to get one chest piece, you're "paying your win". You receive something by clearing the content, you "win" stuff like titles, achievements, KNOW ABOUT THE STORY (Guys, the T12+ cutscenes are... amazing), gear which is the main goal of doing PvE and the experience of doing said content. It doesn't matter if the gear system is not the best, the game rewards you with gear by doing PvE content and other stuff.

Same for PvP, you grind it for wolf seals. Granted, the PvP gear only works in Wolf's Den, but for people doing that, it would be just plain unfair to see someone decked out in cash shop gear. This game doesn't have a competitive PvP, which is the dev's decision. It's hard to see people hardcoring their way with it. But the same thing applies here.

Now, let's talk about minions. You receive a minion. Does it give you an achievement, can you show off all the minions you have? That guy over there has that one minion that you can't get because it's paid. So? It's your personal goal to get them all, the game doesn't reward you by getting them but by GIVING them to you as a reward for doing other stuff. You're not losing or winning anything because the more minions you have, you get nothing in exchange! It doesn't benefit you on anything! Same applies to mount and it's even more limited because you can't even use them in main cities.

TL;DR: PvE/PvE is content where you can have a "pay to win" because they reward you if you clear it, things like minions and mounts don't give you nothing in exchange and they don't benefit you. They're not pay to win. It's subjective to think the opposite, because it's your "personal goal", but nothing else. It's not hard to understand.


Edit: This includes DoL and DoH and fall into "pay to win" if you can buy something that benefit such classes, because they have a direct impact to the game.

[Roris]

Why do you think you can't start the game as a DoH or a DoL class and must instead wait until you're level 10 in a DoW/DoM class to unlock DoH/DoL? If those were meant to be the main purpose of the game, you would be allowed to start as those classes right from character creation... but you can't. Not only that, but a large number of ingredients for crafting classes are enemy or dungeon drops.

It's hardly "my own personal definition" when the game itself forces you to engage in at least a minimal amount of combat even for those classes.

Legacy players didn't have to unlock them if they already had them leveled and 1.0 allowed you to start as them so there's that, but sure, new ARR players do have to unlock them like they have to do with every class by getting their starter class to 10 through quests and combat. However, once unlocked DoH/DoLs can technically progress without ever setting foot in battle as they can sustain themselves solely with the profits they make from both those disciplines combined, and then buy the mats they need with them. Sure the combat requirement might be minimal and is one of the many aspects towards progression in this game, yet it's also not the main condition to win the game as a whole as there are many win and lose conditions and objectives.

Going by the same logic, a PvE only oriented player can't also ever win the game because DoH and DoL's are full fledged classes with their own progression paths and an integral part of the game, as "optional" as you may or may not consider those classes. I guess people who don't level up all the classes be it through combat or other means can't also ever win because the game tracks your progress towards them.

Besides if the mount and minion collection aspect isn't important, then why were they featured for so long and so prominently in the very first page of a player's Lodestone profile? I don't think you could even hide those back then when you can certainly adjust the privacy settings on the other tabs like Achievements. Before tabs were implemented to tidy up those pages, I'm pretty sure mounts and minions were even displayed above a player's leveled classes, meaning they had a higher importance at least in page hierarchy. Even after the changes they are still listed under the main Character tab, meaning they are considered an important aspect of a character and a player, as important as their GC/FC, gear, stats and levels.

Edit: This includes DoL and DoH and fall into "pay to win" if you can buy something that benefit such classes, because they have a direct impact to the game.

Extra paid retainers allow players to gather more mats in ventures, not just quick ventures which are also an extra gamble chance on their own, to craft more items, and also give them up to 40 additional Marketboard slots to sell more of those items make even bigger profits. If that isn't borderline P2W, I really don't know anymore.